Website Addresses Will Never Be the Same
ICANN, the international organization in charge of web domain names, has just decided to allow people to register pretty much anything as a top-level domain. That means instead of boring old .com and .net, we could be visiting "www.cute.dogs" soon.
Top-level domains are the suffixes like .com, .org and .net, whose variety has traditionally been limited to country names. But that's all changed. From the Wall Street Journal:
A top-level domain name of up to 63 characters of just about any string of letters can be registered, Icann said. For instance, someone could turn "asknotwhatyourcountrycandoforyouaskwhatyoucandoforyourcountry" into a domain, with no suffix. Applicants will need to spend $185,000 upfront just to apply for such a unique name, however, though traditional addresses would still cost a small fraction of that.
Icann will accept the first round of applications for addresses under the new rules from Jan. 12 to April 12. The first of the new domains could be online by late 2012.
January 12th… that doesn't give us much time to raise $185,000 to register the "Adrianchenisamagnificentsexgod" domain.
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